Ghosts of Edinburgh, by Rob Kirkup
Rob Kirkup and his three team members, after descending on York’s ghost scene for an earlier book turn their attention to Edinburgh and conduct first-hand investigations over the course of a year. Edinburgh has a well-honed ghost industry, so do the lads add anything new?
The book covers eight venues: Edinburgh Dungeon; the Covenanters’ Prison and Greyfriars Kirkyard; Mary King’s Close (twice); Dalhousie Castle Hotel and Spa; the South Bridge Vaults; Bedlam Theatre; and the Cammo Estate. If you’ve read the York book you will know what to expect with this one as the recipe is much the same: pursue an enjoyable hobby with some mates that may turn up something significant for our view of life after death, and which offers ample opportunity to employ gadgets on investigations. On occasion they hook up with commercial tours, but prefer to have a location to themselves in order to retain the fullest control possible.
The result is a record of their activities with the same level of often unnecessary detail as in the earlier one (Kirkup can spend a page picking the guys up before they even begin the trip to Edinburgh). Then when they arrive there is a lot of ‘we were startled to hear/see something, but it turned out to be [something mundane]’. There are some unusual occurrences, notably a sweary session with a ‘Frank’s Box’ (that’s the Frank’s Box swearing, not the team), but it’s difficult to know what significance to attach to these incidents.
On the other hand we get plenty of information about where they eat, drink and sleep, and the focus is on what they do and how they respond to their environment, with the sort of historical context for the venues that can be gleaned from an internet search. A bibliography isn’t required because they don’t pay much attention to what other people have written (Jan-Andrew Henderson’s The Ghost that Haunted Itself: The Story of the Mackenzie Poltergeist is an exception, but then Henderson contributed a foreword to Kirkup’s book).
There is a revealing moment when Kirkup concedes that his fellow investigators might not know about the Covenanters’ Prison’s ‘notoriety’, which suggests a lack of preparation on their part, and indeed he gives them a mini-lecture on its history and the Mackenzie Poltergeist. The description of their amusing visit to Mary King’s Close as part of a public tour makes no reference to Richard Wiseman’s 2005 investigation which examined non-paranormal explanations for people’s experiences there, nor does the chapter on their second visit, when they secured the place for a private investigation.
There are two main aspects to the book. The first relates to its title, ostensibly a general study of Edinburgh’s ghosts, and the unsuspecting may expect it to be a wide-ranging survey. Unfortunately the reader will not come away with a comprehensive knowledge of its ghosts, so anyone wanting a tourist-style guide to the city’s paranormal heritage should look elsewhere. The second aspect is the description of how the group conducts investigations which has wider applicability, though not everybody will want to emulate the style of this particular group. There are useful accounts of how the commercial ghost tours they go on operate, which may turn out to be the most valuable aspect of the book historically.
It is nice to see a small independent group going out and doing investigations, but the places they go to are well-worn for the most part. I notice that the running header is ‘Paranormal Edinburgh’. That may have been the intended title, changed because it had already been taken by Gordon Rutter’s offering on the city, published by the History Press. History Press also publish Alan Murdie’s Haunted Edinburgh, so there are readily-available alternatives for those who want less on the eating habits of ‘Team Kirkup’ and more on Edinburgh’s ghost stories.
Paranormal Merseyside, by S. D. Tucker
The Merseyside area has a rich and proud history, and S. D. Tucker has given it the consideration it deserves. It’s a substantial book, over 250 pages, much chunkier than many paranormal guides. As a consequence it covers a lot of ground, geographically and in subject matter, and still has the space to examine topics in depth. It contains the familiar mix of paranormal, folkloric, fortean and generally weird that one expects from a book with such a broad title, and it is well researched, with an insider’s perspective. Tucker approaches the subject with humour, but also respect. As a bonus he’s a dab hand with a pencil, and the book is illustrated with his own light-hearted sketches in addition to the usual photographs.
As well as the usual ghost sightings and poltergeists, there are UFOs and encounters with aliens. There are extraordinary, allegedly, human powers, and such bizarreness as appearances by Spring-heeled Jack and the kindred but somewhat more obscure Ghastly Galosher Man, favouring galoshes rather than spring-loaded shoes (as far as I’m aware galoshes are not school pumps, or plimsolls/gym shoes as Tucker suggests, but are rubber overboots that probably wouldn’t have much spring in them to facilitate a quick getaway). There are social panics and rumours, the best being the 1964 leprechaun ‘invasion’ that had children running around in search of ‘little green men with white hats’ and generally having a great time doing so.
There is clearly an Irish connection with the leprechauns, but Tucker thinks that the link is overstated. He points out that the height of immigration from Ireland was in the mid-nineteenth century, and argues that children in 1960s Liverpool with Irish heritage would be a long way from their Celtic roots and stories of little people. Yet in the 1950s and 60s, with the UK booming economically and becoming increasingly socially relaxed, and Ireland doing not so much of either, over three-quarters of a million Irish citizens arrived in Britain seeking a better life. The youngsters using the notion of the leprechaun as a peg for their antics might have been closer to the traditional folklore – or traditional leg-pulling – of the Emerald Isle than Tucker suggests.
Underneath the sometimes less than credible tales he recounts, Tucker also uncovers a kind of magic in the mundane. The book is topped and tailed by an account of a 1927 dream that Carl Jung had in which he found himself in Liverpool and from which he concluded that symbolically Liverpool was ‘the pool of life’, an event commemorated by a bust of the thinker that stands in the city centre. Jung saw beneath the surface of our everyday reality to a more profound level, and similarly Tucker sees in these stories something deeper; they are narratives that possess a transformative power which can enrich our lives.
I have an attachment to the area as my father was born in the West Derby district of Liverpool, so I read the book with particular interest. Steven Tucker has made a good job of uncovering the mysterious side of a part of the country that does not always get a good press, but which as this book demonstrates has a colourful and fascinating history behind it, and a more complex one than might be deduced from ignorantly dismissive stereotypes.
Supernatural Wales, by Alvin Nicholas
Supernatural Wales comes with a foreword by Lionel Fanthorpe, so expectations by the reader are naturally high. The result though is a mixed bag. It is organised as an A-Z, and unusually it has an index of places to aid the traveller, something that is too often missing in books organised thematically. Rather than black and white illustrations dropped in throughout the text, there is a separate section of colour images of sites photographed by the author. Caerphilly resident Alvin Nicholas is not a paranormal investigator but has a love of the Welsh countryside, working in heritage and nature conservation. He has mostly trawled secondary sources and includes ghosts, folklore, earth mysteries, accounts of little people, monsters, black dogs, big cats, dragons of course, UFOs and general forteana.
The book is quite short, but even so a lot of the space is taken up with cross-references telling the reader to look somewhere else in the volume. Most of the entries are fairly brief, and are not always relevant to the book’s title. For example, there is a section on alien big cats, which is useful, but a page on what to do if one happens to meet one, and how to collect evidence, seems out of place, as does a list of prehistoric periods from the Paleolithic onwards. Nor does a reference to An American Werewolf in London, merely because scenes were filmed in the Brecon Beacons, seem particularly relevant, nor is a page on types of UFO. These all feel like filler in a book that could do with a more substantial filling. On the other hand the Cardiff poltergeist case investigated by the SPR’s David Fontana is noted very briefly in passing, in the section on ghosts (poltergeists don’t merit one), but few details are given, and no references.
The blurb claims that this is ‘the definitive guide to Welsh ghosts, hauntings, monsters and mysteries’, but it is far from being that. Wales is not short on books about its paranormal aspects, so a new volume has to justify its existence. If I had to choose the best of the bunch, I’m afraid it definitely wouldn’t be this one. It’s not enough to live in, or have an interest in, a place to put together a book on ‘supernatural Wales’, or supernatural anywhere else.
Paranormal Devon, by Daniel Codd
Daniel Codd is an experienced compiler of local paranormal guides, and though not a resident of Devon his extensive research has resulted in a fascinating tour of this beautiful but often wild county, full as it is of mystery and historical interest. It has its share of bleak places, notably treacherous moorland, yet by contrast it has bustling urban areas. It is a place of great variety, and that is reflected in Codd’s book. He has a rich heritage to draw on, and he presents a wide range of ghost stories and fortean topics from earliest to recent times.
Some inclusions are predictable – there is the usual crop of pubs, but including one run by owners who are non-believers in the paranormal and do not welcome ghost-hunting groups, which must be a first. The longest section is on ghosts, but Devon has a lot more to offer; as Codd picturesquely puts it, ‘In some ways, stories of long-ago Devon can almost depict the county as a kind of Tolkien-esque land of fairytale sprites, ghouls, demons and mythical creatures’, and that’s before you get to the giants. What a great place for a holiday. Throw in the UFO sightings and a bit of sun and this is a paranormalist’s dream.
If you want creepiness on your visit you need look no further than the bleak moorlands. Conan Doyle didn’t when writing The Hound of the Baskervilles, and those canny marketeers talk of Dartmoor as ‘Baskerville country’, to cash in. That ‘gigantic hound’ is not alone and Devon has its fair share of black dogs, but they are far from being the only members of a peculiar menagerie: mystery animals abound, both supernatural and out-of-place (including alien big cats, most famously the Beast of Exmoor), so it is appropriate that the Centre for Fortean Zoology is based at Bideford.
Rather worryingly, the Devil seems to spend a lot of time in Devon, with or without whisht hounds when on Dartmoor. There are also a lot of wicked witches, and, not necessarily any more benign, there are pixies on Exmoor. Vampires and werewolves have found Devon a congenial place to settle, alongside its extensive population of pensioners. Even Spring-heeled Jack gets a mention, taking a break from the north-west. Naturally Devon has a strong maritime tradition, a pursuit that tends to breed its fair share of superstitions. Sea-related ghosts are covered and Codd notes that there are linkages between ghost stories and criminal activities, with fake ghosts used as a Scooby-Dooish cover for smuggling. There are legends connected to Sir Francis Drake, plus accounts of mermaids and sea monsters off the coast.
The book’s thematic structure makes it awkward to use as a guidebook for the visitor, but there are sections devoted to specific places. Berry Pomeroy has one, as does Exeter, but most references are scattered throughout the text, so the lack of an index is a drawback. Plympton is mentioned, but not its most famous son – Cyril Hoskin, better known as T. Lobsang Rampa. (I once made a pilgrimage to Plympton in homage to Rampa. There was nothing to show that the great lama had ever been there, in fact there was nothing much at all.) But Plympton is not Devon, and on the whole it is a great place to visit. While Codd concedes that the county contains even more strangeness than he had space to include, having his book in hand will add an extra dimension, whether one is there physically, walking its streets, lanes and moors, or sitting at home in an armchair dreaming of Glorious Devon.